An alloy of innocence and arrogance, young (Ted) Williams came to Boston when it had four morning and four evening local newspapers engaged in perpetual circulation wars. He became grist for their mills, and his wars with the sportswriters brought out the worst in him, and cost him. He won two Most Valuable Player Awards and finished second four times. Several of those times he would have won had he not had such poisonous relations with the voting press.

Stalin's henchman Molotov, 96, died old and in bed, a privilege he helped to deny to millions.

Each achieves one or both of two objectives — making liberals feel good about themselves and being good to liberal candidates.

Baseball, like Pericles' Athens (or any other good society), is simultaneously democratic and aristrocratic. Anyone can enjoy it, but the more you apply yourself, the more you enjoy it.

For Conservatives, seeing is believing; for liberals, believing is seeing.

As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own; rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well.

As has been said, standards are always out of date - that is why we call them standards.